Looking for Alice

Yesterday I saw a lovely production called Edgar's Echo by Kallo Collective & Krepsko Theatre. The performance, based very loosely on Lewis Carroll's life and work, used circus, puppetry and theatre to create a wonderful, surrealistic and very Carrolian world. It also reminded me of another performance I saw a few years ago at the Edinburgh Fringe called Looking for Alice. Although one of them was traditional theatre and a sort of homage to Alice in Wonderland and the other an interpretation on Lewis Carroll's (or rather Charles Dodgson) life and works, they had the same dreamlike, wonderful, absurd atmosphere - a lingering feeling of waiting for things to happen. And they never quite do.

You can't avoid the Red Queen

In Waiting For Alice we sat in a tent and drank "ink" from a mishmash of teacups in the midst of characters from the two Alice books who had heard that "an alice" was coming. The amazement of what an alice might be - a fierce creature perhaps? - and the animals' aspiration to be The Protagonist (of what?) was all that really happened, but it was such a well  made performance and such a wonderful experience that it has stayed with me. I only wish I'd remember the name of the group - I wonder if they're still performing?

In the footsteps of Alice?

I was reminded of that earlier Alice yesterday at Edgar's Echo. Now Edgar's Echo had little to do with Alice and all to do with the life of Lewis Carroll/Charles Dodgson and his little muse Alice Liddell. The story in itself didn't require knowing the author's history in detail, I think the adults in the audience waited more traditional circus than the children, who were happy to just watch in awe as the house on stage started to be taken over by plants; how a troupe of tiny giraffes all of a sudden crossed the stage or a tea party on the ceiling...

I guess if you adapt Lewis Carroll to the stage you're better off not going the Disney way - the ingredients to an unforgettable performance lay in the magic of the unexpected and unsure.